Tag Archives: gender

Some of the women who were harassed by Harvey Weinstein mentioned a kind of code: whispered information passed between women about who to avoid, who was a creep. This code was even the source of a joke in an SNL skit from last Saturday; “the code was ‘he raped me.’ That way, if any men were listening, they’d tune us right out,” Kate McKinnon’s silver screen character quavers out.

Essentially, in fact as well as fiction, women gossiped to keep each other and themselves safe.

Now, arguably, this doesn’t fall into the traditional definition of “gossip,” but it’s certainly how the word is used in certain institutions, as in “now, now, make sure you’re not spreading gossip or slander about that man.”

Harvey Weinstein likely never would have been outed had it not been for this kind of gossip. If every woman had kept quiet about her own experience, then the women, collectively, would not have realized that there were enough of them to take this powerful man on.

If the victims of Catholic clergy abuse had all kept silent, the abuses would have been allowed to go on, shielded from the light of day. In so many circumstances, if the “gossip” from one woman had been heeded, then a second woman would not have been injured.

The parade of “MeToo” stories and hashtags should tell us one thing: women (and men) don’t always feel comfortable talking about who assaulted them and how. In no small part because this is so often dismissed as “gossip” or “slander,” and the victims are told both overtly and covertly to keep quiet about it.

This is why it is so problematic if any culture or community reacts to reports of sexual harassment and assault with “now, now, let’s remember not to gossip.” Very often, there is a motive for keeping the information quiet: churches look bad if their pastors or elders or seminary students are known predators. Schools rarely survive open discussion about two, three, four, teachers committing illegal sexual assault on students. But if there is a pattern of this kind, there is probably a reason for it. The culture of silence invites inappropriate behavior; where there is no significant consequence for terrible behavior in adult men (or adults in general), adult men will behave badly. Not all adult men or even most, but some will, and those who are tempted to do similar things will see that they, too, can get away with it.

So if any institution you are involved with — a club, a school, even a tight-knit group of friends — insists that “gossip” be avoided in matters of sexual assault, understand that that institution is not a safe place for anyone who is being or has been assaulted. But it is a safe place for serial assaulters.

If you’re noticing red flags around assault-related “be sure not to gossip or slander” admonitions, it’s worth doing a little digging. For example, ask schools what their policy is on reporting teacher harassment or assault. Do they report every illegal student-teacher action to police right away, or do they quietly shoo the teacher into a different kind of position in another town or district? Maybe just demote him (or her) to community tutor rather than full teacher?

Do schools tell parents if a teacher or principal is dismissed with pending criminal assault charges, or do they instead send out a letter noting his resignation for reasons unknown, painting the man as a wonderful and upstanding member of the community who is going to stop by the school whenever he feels like it? If a teacher becomes sexually involved with a student, do they spin it as merely an inappropriate “consensual relationship” or do they recognize that middle school and high school students cannot legally (in nearly all cases) or morally (in all cases, due to the power dynamic) consent to a “relationship” with a teacher? Do they ever repeat the teacher’s (legally bogus) claims that the “relationship” was all the fault of the student? Do they ever shrug harassment away because the teacher seems like such a nice guy otherwise?

Parents should know: if a student comes forward to report unwanted physical contact or inappropriate advances of any kind, what is the protocol for responding? Is the student taken seriously, even if the student is not considered a model of perfect behavior? Note: children and teens who are being sexually targeted and harassed may act out or react in ways that are not always productive. Even more insidiously, if they have a choice, predators often target children and teens whose credibility is already in question — or whose shame, social class, malleability or general “attitude” make them easy to manipulate. Like any predator, they pick the easy targets rather than the more difficult ones.

And, perhaps most importantly, is there a certain degree of transparency so that parents can be assured that these things are appropriately handled rather than swept under the rug? Can you, for example, get straightforward questions answered in a clear and straightforward way when you ask them?

This is particularly important where students are part of a culture that values obedience over independence. If children are trained from birth to obey quickly and without questioning, they will likely go along with things they are innately uncomfortable with if it’s initiated by an authority figure. Where authority figures are astute and caring, this won’t be an issue. But if they’re tempted to abuse their power, where they’re tempted to get their personal, extracurricular needs met by those they’re in charge of, this becomes a real problem.

What do you do if you find yourself witnessing or experiencing harassment in a culture or community that inherently or overtly promotes silence in such circumstances? To quote my dear friend St. Tara:*

I want to outline some strategies for whistle-blowers to keep themselves out of the swamp of proving their stories to a hostile audience just looking for a way to trip them up. Here’s what I have so far:

1. Stick to what you experienced and how you experienced it. If you had unwanted attention shown to you it ultimately doesn’t matter what was “meant” by it. Your experience is legitimate information that even people who disagree should be willing and interested to assimilate. 2. Point to the culture/community pressure that made it difficult for you to speak up, either to defend yourself in the first place or to report it. 3. Avoid trying to prove the nature or intent of the other person even when you’re personally very sure of the meaning.

In a nutshell, when it comes to the safety of yourself and those who are or may become targets of assault, fearing “gossip” should be much less important than telling the truth.

My little brother once carried an unconscious woman to her friend’s house so that the man who had roofied her, whoever he was and nobody seemed to know, would be far away; so she would wake up in a familiar and comfortable place.

This is for all the men who have chosen to use their strength that way rather than the other way.

A man I knew once slept outside a drunk woman’s room because she was scared of something; maybe it was illogical of her, and maybe it was inconvenient for him, but he curled up in her doorway — not inside it, because that would have been disrespectful — and kept her safe.

This is for all the men who have cared more about women than they cared how “logical” or with-it they were being.

Another man I knew told me his deepest, darkest secret: that when he was a broad-shouldered teenager, he was walking by himself at night through a park and he stumbled upon a man assaulting a woman. So he, the teenager, attacked the man, stabbed him, and grabbed the girl by the hand and ran with her. He did not know if the man survived. That was the secret. He had maybe killed someone.

This is for all the men who have risked themselves for someone smaller than them.

A friend of mine invited me to visit him in his home state, and met me at the airport with flowers. I blushed and worried, because I wasn’t sure if I liked him like that. Maybe I did, but I didn’t know yet. He took me out, showed me things I had never seen before, sat on sunny benches with me while I sighed and put my head on his shoulder. One night, he spent a hundred bucks on complex cocktails and we went home to his apartment, where I was sleeping on a couch made of pillows. I hugged him and I thought, maybe I want to kiss him now. So I kissed his cheek, shut my eyes, and then changed my mind. He let me go to my pillow bed unpestered, unkissed. He never made me feel guilty about any of it. He never pushed me, he never acted grumpy. I didn’t know how to tell him thank you; how much it had meant to me that he let me not know what I wanted.

This is for all the men who understand that women owe them nothing.

But. This is not for the brand of “nice guy” who thinks of himself as an upstanding all-American Christian, the guy who didn’t quit no matter how many times I told him no and shoved his hands off me, overandoverandover. I know how offended he would be if I suggested that he had done anything to violate me. I told him no and he asked why not. “Because I said so,” I retorted. He groaned. “That’s the best reason ever,” he said, and then, five minutes later, he tried again.

This is not for the pair of well-off, “upstanding” males who started talking to a friend and I at our local pub. She liked one of them; let’s call him John. John bought us drinks, which I refused to do anything but sip. He tried to dance with my friend, and I watched them; watched her tell him that he’d have to take her out on a real date and get to know her, that she wasn’t going to do anything with him that night, she just wasn’t. I watched her smile at him as she said this, trying to smooth the presumptive assertions by making the smile arch, feminine. Watched him buy her drink after drink, watched her drink them. I tried to scoop her away, but when I got close, John’s friend — let’s call him Fred — would start touching me. He tried lifting the hem of my shirt up, tried grazing my thigh with his hand. I yelled at him and whacked his hand. Overandover. After awhile, I told her I was leaving and asked her to come with me. “I’ll be right behind you, ten minutes,” she said. She never followed me. I texted her all night, asking if she was OK, guilt coursing through my veins. The next morning, she came to my house and lied; she said she was fine with what had happened. So what was I going to do except hug her? And hug her, later, when she admitted she was not fine with it, that he hadn’t listened to her, that she wanted to swear off men entirely.

This is not for the school principal who spanked a pre-teen female student. This is not for the “repentant” husband who demanded his wife move back in with him. This is not for the male teacher who made a joke about a female student’s body. This is not for all the men who are subtly-but-not-overtly creepy.

I’m positive these men think of themselves as model citizens. They would be appalled if anyone punched them; nothing wrong, nothing untoward going on. Pushing a woman’s boundaries, ignoring the words that come out of her mouth, that’s just part of being an all-American male. Women want a man who is assertive, who doesn’t back down. Women, also, don’t always know what’s appropriate, since their feelings are on the delicate side. This is often what they tell me when I broach the subject. “I’m so glad you know me better than I know myself,” I snort. “I’m so glad I’ve got a big, strong man to interpret my feelings for me.”

This is not for these men. But.

This is for all the men who have felt ashamed of their sexuality because of these stories, like maybe it was something that would hurt women.

This is for all the women who have felt ashamed of their sexuality because of these stories, like maybe it was something they had to hide under layers of fabric or it would somehow hurt them.

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About

Katie Botkin is based in the Northern Rockies, where she finds ample opportunity to explore and find quietus. She sees her family often. When she is not otherwise occupied, she blogs.